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JFK Collision Raises Concerns About Safety With Big Aircraft
The April 11 mishap at a taxiway intersection at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, in which the wingtip of a taxiing Airbus A380 struck the tail of a Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet and spun the smaller aircraft nearly 90 deg., is raising some big questions.
More precisely, the incident raises questions about how to ensure safe ground operations of really big commercial aircraft.
The incident occurred at nighttime, and the Air France A380 crew, taxiing to a runway for takeoff, may not have noticed that the regional jet, operated by Delta Connection carrier Comair, had stopped instead of proceeding to its gate, especially with the light rain, darkness, reflections of light and glare, suggests Kevin Hiatt, a former Delta Air Lines pilot who is now executive vice president of the Alexandria, Va.-based Flight Safety Foundation.
No one was injured, but the mishap drew wide media coverage and Internet saturation, largely because of a video showing the strike and spin. Inevitably, size-related safety questions arose.
An Air France A380's wingtip was damaged when it struck a Delta Connection CRJ700's horizontal stabilizer at JFK Airport April 11.
The Airbus A380 is the biggest of the commercial airplanes, with dimensions that include a wingspan of nearly 262 ft, (80 meters), about 50 ft. wider than on a Boeing 747-400. But the conversation also included Boeing's 747-8, a freighter with a wingspan of 225 ft., about 13 ft. longer than on a 747-400.
The FAA sets design standards that govern how an airport must be configured to safely accommodate aircraft with certain dimensions. A 747, for example, operates under Design Group V standards. The A380 and 747-8 are supposed to operate under Design Group VI standards, which call for wider taxiways and more separation from the service road.
Some of those standards are intended to reduce the risk of aircraft bumping into each other while moving on the ground. But those standards are much easier to accomplish if an airport is starting from scratch; it might not be feasible or practical to implement them at an existing airport, particularly one with limited space.
That is why many airports have applied for waivers from the Group VI standards by submitting alternative proposals for maintaining an acceptable level of safety, which must be accompanied by safety studies. The FAA has granted more than dozen waivers for airports that committed to precautions such as restricting which taxiways and ground routes the larger aircraft can take, or perhaps adjusting what other aircraft can do while the bigger aircraft are on the move.
One of those airports is Kennedy, so it is not surprising that the incident draws the waivers into question.
It is not a trivial concern for safety-or the airplane manufacturers, which need the waivers so their aircraft can operate at more airports. The idea of the A380, after all, is to provide more capacity at congested airports, and many more of the airplanes will be flying in the coming years, serving airports with a lot of moving pieces.
"Kennedy is one of those places where things are always moving and always changing," says Hiatt, who flew for Delta for more than 26 years
In reality, however, both Airbus and Boeing probably can rest easy. The NTSB investigation is likely to focus as much on the Air France crew and ground control as on the waivers, if not more so. But the incident should create more caution.
"I don't think really it's a systemic problem, but I do think it's an issue that needs to be looked at," Hiatt says of the movements of aircraft with larger wingspans. "You have to make sure those big guys have the proper clearance."
Dick Marchi, a senior adviser for Airports Council International-North America, suggests controllers, who devote more attention to runway clearance, might be given more responsibility for taxiways.
So, is this incident indicative of a big problem? Based on the evidence seen so far, it is not yet. But a little more vigilance would be helpful, lest it become one.
http://www.aviationweek.com